Week 4

By Lili Hozakowska:

I saw today’s case study as a surprising turn of events considering the focus of the study was not informatics, but rather change management. The informatics component was certainly apparent since the issue at hand was related to an EHR implementation, but this issue could have been anything and we would still step through the same change management process. While I was confused at first, I soon came to realize that discussing – and in particular, practicing – change management was incredibly important. We have heard about it in other classes, but change management is something that we, as future healthcare administrators, will need to know how to implement no matter the situation. By focusing on this case study, it gave us the opportunity to actually work through what we might do if we found ourselves in Sarah’s (the CMIO’s) shoes. Additionally, considering so few people in our program our techies, the case study was able to provide us with an informatics context to which to apply change management, which again could very possibly be something many of us will face in the future.

The three options most groups came up with were essentially to either agree with the CEO, disagree with the CEO, or seek some type of compromise. When approaching change management, a compromise is usually the chosen course (unless there are extenuating circumstances that make negotiation impossible) because it provides both parties with the opportunity to explain their side and then work with each other to formulate a new plan that they both can accept. The reason that I preferred compromise in this instance is because one of Sarah’s main concerns was the administration versus clinician culture; she didn’t want the providers to feel as though administration was trying to force them to adopt a system they didn’t want to use. By compromising with Emma (the CEO), Sarah could maybe find physicians who were already on board with this transition and were willing to volunteer their department to be the pilot. This would result in greater transparency and help garner support from the remaining MSMC employees.

The one last point I wanted to make was regarding a comment made toward the end of class. It was assumed that the articles printed about MSMC falling behind technology-wise would not actually impact the organization much. I disagree. For patients who already go to MSMC, then maybe they wouldn’t pay attention to the articles. However, for those who do not have a regular physician or who have not previously been to MSMC and had a positive experience, what are they supposed to think? Most people today, when they have to pick a restaurant, a cleaning service, or even a doctor, they usually turn to websites such as Yelp! to search for ratings and reviews. If MSMC is seen as falling behind the times, then they are at risk of receiving poorer ratings from younger consumers who associate advanced technology with higher quality care. Before truly answering whether or not people would be influenced by the articles, I think that it’s important to first assess the demographics so that you understand the population to whom you are catering.